Sex trafficking is a form of forced labour consisting of exploiting a trafficked person for sexual services. Sex trafficking falling under the forced labour definition is characterised by the threat of punishment and for which the person has not offered themselves voluntarily. The UN’s Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (the Palermo Protocol) includes three elements in its definition: the act, the means and the object. Sex trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons who under threat, force, coercion, fraud, deception or abuse of power are sexually exploited for the financial gain of another.
Source: End Slavery Now
Sex work in Lebanon is criminalised under its penal law, which has led to sex trafficking rings taking advantage of undocumented and destitute Migrant Domestic Workers, forcing them into involuntary sex work.
According to a report by LAU and Egna Legna Besidet, 68% of MDWs in Lebanon have experienced one or several forms of sexual harassment by their employers, their agents or by strangers in public.
Migrant Workers’ Action has submitted an Input to the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls after a call for submissions by civil society to discuss sexual and gender-based violence in the sex work industry. The Kafala system is enabling sex trafficking and, with it, SGBV against MDWs in Lebanon. Download our briefing to learn more about the issue and read our recommendations to stakeholders and decision-makers.